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jriding writes to mention that a new effort, headed by Sony Pictures' CTO, will attempt to allow customers to stream video content seamlessly on any device that they own. One has to wonder how successful or "all encompassing" it will be without Apple, TiVo, and Amazon, some of the major players in the space. "It's all very much in the future, however. The press release is peppered with confidence-wilting phrases such as "will define and build a new media framework" (something this complex hasn't even been defined yet?), "we are developing," and "over time." Without even a spec in place, there's no way we will see working products for at least a year, quite possibly longer. And, if the strategy document we discussed in August remains accurate, new DECE-ready devices will be needed to make the whole scheme work. By the time video stores adopt the tech, electronics firms implement it, movie studios support it, and consumers purchase all the pieces to make it work, will it still matter?"

Sony are notorious control freaks and DRM stalwarts. Need I remind anyone of the Rootkit CD fiasco [wikipedia.org], or the fact that they sold their Blu-ray format largely on the basis of its not one, but *two*, different "uncrackable" DRM layers [wikipedia.org]?

Is there anyone in the world who believes for a SECOND that their "Buy Once, Play Anywhere" will translate to anything other than "Buy Once, Play Anywhere, as long as you let us put our intrusive DRM schemes on your devices and let your devices phone home to get our approval first"?

Anytime you have a hardware manufacturer who is also a media content producer, you're going to get heavy-handed DRM on their devices and media content, all under their strict control. Sony is no more going to let you make copies of their movies willie-nillie than they're going to let you have access to the GPU on the PS3 for your homebrew.

Yes it does contain a JAVA VM..... (so no "native code execution"). it can "technically" patch a device, but only for the runtime of the disc. the VM prevents permanent changes to the system. So yes, it may prevent a disc from playing on a hacked system, but should not change the system.

That doesnt mean that Firmware updates can be distributed via BD, but they will be a player by player package, and do ask confirmation.

The article is sparse on details, but I understood it as "JAVA programs will run every time you play the disk (checking the memory and such), but there is native execution available for patching compromised devices."

This is not just Sony. This is pretty much the ideal DRM system for the big media companies.

Because it is centrally controlled, and it is setup so the copyright owner controls what you can do with your purchase.

This is the basis of a long-term strategy by the RIAA/MPAA companies.

First, create a DRM system that is completely controlled by themselves, and get hardware manufacturers to embed it into as many devices as possible [like DVDCSS and AACS]. Make sure it is not beholden to anyone else [such as Apple

Buy Once, Play Anywhere, as long as you let us put our intrusive DRM schemes on your devices and let your devices phone home to get our approval first

I go to forums about videogames on consoles and I see zero DRM topics. I go to any news item about games here on/. and I see nothing but DRM topics, primary issue be dammned. If this gambit works, one good thing to come out of it will be that we can talk about other things for once!

Kidding of course. As the owner of a non-ipod MP3 player, that would suck. My wife buys tons of songs on itunes and I can't listen to them. Moreover, if music and video formats get as bad as consoles with exclusitivity (the

Right click on the song in iTunes.Select "convert to mp3".Move file onto your device. (After all, it's still a storage medium and a file.)Tada.

Barring that: (much slower)Build a playlist in iTunes of the protected songs you want.Switch to that playlist view, insert a cdr, and click "burn."Go to another computer, import as you would a normal cd and move to device.

I was aware of the writing to a CD. That's a timesuck though, and I don't want to waste the CDs.

As far as the mp3 conversion, the last time I tried, several years ago, that was not an option that worked.

I'm not sure if I was overthinking it, but we're not talking vital songs here, and tinkering around with software settings to get the latest catchy song is pretty low on my priorities list, not to mention being more frustrating than doing the dishes or cleaning out the catbox, (which are two of the aforemen

I'm going to defend them on one point that they finally almost get the "play anywhere" idea and are willing to work across companies to achieve what Apple has already done. Apple has proved that people will buy up electronic copies sold "just like a book" and usable on so many devices. The "pairing" of iPods and Apple TVs to "mothership" computers has worked out very well. The only flaw Apple's stuff has is that you can't automatically aggregate stuff (to backup all your media) among machines even under t

Is there anyone in the world who believes for a SECOND that their "Buy Once, Play Anywhere" will translate to anything other than "Buy Once, Play Anywhere, as long as you let us put our intrusive DRM schemes on your devices and let your devices phone home to get our approval first"?

Me for one. It will translate to "abject failure that won't work at all and nobody will use". Remember movies sold on UMD and MiniStick? Sony has a long history of format failure that doesn't seem to dissuade them for cooking up new failed formats. There is no such thing as DRM that doesn't piss off users. Either it's strong enough to prevent many attacks so it's a major annoyance, or it's so weak that it doesn't protect against many attacks but it's still a minor annoyance.

This is unlike Amazon, TIVO, Microsoft, Apple how? Every single digital download provider locks you into a proprietary player, a proprietary service and a proprietary format. It's the main reason that you'd have to be a moron to build a collection of movies or shows in the current climate. An industry wide standard for digital downloads is an absolute necessity for the format to take off, otherwise it will be the usual gorillas slugging it out with their

To play anywhere we want at any time, we need open or widely implemented video and audio formats supported by any hardware and which can be carried on any kind of memory (optical drivers, flash memory,...) and that can be transfered from one device to another using standard connection protocols like USB mass storage device, FTP,... No lock-in crap, closed formats, or "DRM that allows playing on any device in your domain" or other such silly short lived things. So if what I described isn't what Sony plans, it sucks.

i want music provider to be my backup vault. if anything happens, i should know i can get what i bought from there again, with a click.

if i go traveling anywhere, i shouldnt need to worry about taking my mp3 player with me, platform, framework and shit. i should just be easy to know that from anywhere, i can login to the 'music provider x' and get whatever i need from there, again. they can limit my download to 1 per day if they want or anything. or, even can charge me something like 0.1 cents for each additional download for all i care.

i just want NO hassles, and full reliability.

its amazing that it took them THAT long to realize that this is the real deal.

I think you are a bit unrealistic. Did you also demand that if you broke or otherwise rendered useless your CD/Tapes/VHS/DVDs purchased that you should be able to return the broken medium with a proof of purchase for a replacement copy? I highly doubt it. So why, after you purchase a digital copy, is it their responsibility to know that *you* bought it and have the *right* to it? Once you have your copy you should be able to do with it what you please, including backing it up how you see fit to preserve

If you subscribe to their notion that you're purchasing a license to listen rather than a copy of the music, then yes, they should absolutely replace broken/damaged/lost media. I think there's a saying involving cake about their approach...

Because when you buy a CD, you have a physical product you can hold onto. When you buy a digital download, you don't have a physical item, so they should allow you to redownload in the case of it being lost. Assuming the download service you use doesn't have record of your purchases, how do you prove to the police/RIAA that the 15 Gigs of MP3s on your computer is stuff you bought from said music provider is actually legally yours, and not something that you just pirated.

When you download music to a HDD its no different that having it on CD. Its just a physical medium holding data. The only difference is that the physical medium is already paid for in bulk... you basically only have rights to the data.

First of all, you don't really have any problems if you are just downloading, its when you share them out that you break the law. Obtaining isn't the part that will get you in trouble, its the distributing. Like you said, how can they prove how you got it? They can't.

As to Firehed... If you buy a book and then lose that book or accidentally set it on fire then do you think you have a right to another copy? You paid for your copy, you ruined/lost/destroyed it, you then have to buy another one. The same thing goes with the CD. Your argument only strengthens my point that once you obtain your copy you are responsible for preserving it. I don't prescribe to their notion of licensing and fair use supports me.

Well this is actually a really good point, because this is precisely what's been wrong with the RIAA/MPAA/BIAA licensing model.

If, as they say you are purchasing a license to play media off them, then you should be able to get a replacement cd/dvd/vhs tape for nothing more than the cost of shipping + media(some companies will actually do this for games/software).

After all, all you bought was a license, so the media ought not to matter. You should also by this same logic be able to play your music, video, ga

The problem with moving that sort of idea to music is the much larger pool of songs / artists / etc. that would have to reside on the service provider's servers. I don't think this is plausible without some sort of service contract (which makes this idea a lot less appealing - to me at least). The effort needed to host that much content on live servers capable of streaming to that many devices on demand just isn't justified in the pay once business

i want music provider to be my backup vault. if anything happens, i should know i can get what i bought from there again, with a click.

Liquid Audio offered this in 1998.

The music studios specifically didn't want this. They want you to repurchase music as much as possible and they don't care how much it pisses off consumers. Their wet dream is pay-per-play.

Sony doesn't need to develop a new "framework" or "technologies". What this deep marketspeak means is that they're trying to develop a new kind of DRM that will be more transparent to users so they'll be less pissed off about it. Good luck with that.

Consumers need to buy replacement devices, and companies need the specs to make them. If this truly is buy once play anywhere, what's the difference between patent-free devices and a completely encumbered system which has the same effect? That's right, someone owns the patent and is making money. Like selling bottled water.

In the short term, the 'rights' you will be granted under this system will be generous and prices will be cheap. This phase is known as the "adoption phase".

However, in the longer term, assuming this system gains traction so they can just stop licensing content to competing systems, such as the iTMS, prices will go up, and the rights you are granted will be less generous.

Like in the short term, you may be able to go to your friends how, and add their TV to yo

According to Singer, video should become a buy once, play anywhere technology like CDs and DVDs.... will define and build a new media framework

Ummm.... doesn't this already exist? I mean, if you want to release video in a format that will play anywhere, on any device... this is trivial. Just release it using a well-established video codec. Every laptop and OS and browser and media center and video iPod and mobile phone can then play the file.

Of course this would be by far the most consumer-friendly approach, and would satisfy the requirement of "play anywhere technology." But of course the subtext to the article, which isn't explicitly stated, is that they want a "play anywhere" format... but with DRM.

This is basically an oxymoron, though. Like a "drive anywhere" car, that is incidentally specifically designed to shut-off if you drive outside of a pre-approved range. Or a "cook anything" microwave oven that reads the barcodes off your instant-meals, and incidentally won't turn on if unrecognized things (like home-made food) are put inside.

This whole venture is doomed to fail. It will fail because for a truly "play anywhere" ecosystem, the DRM spec would have to be open and not costly (in which case, homebrewers and hackers alike will circumvent it within minutes). It will fail because big companies (like Apple) have no reason to help this idea. It will fail because the implementation will be complicated and error prone. It will fail because consumers will still notice the DRM, and have to overcome it frequently (thereby defeating the purpose).

I jest; but that really is the self-serving mythology of all this. Consumers are pitiful, helpless creatures totally incapable of creating anything for themselves(except when we are lobbying for more draconian laws, in which case they are terrifying interwebs-enabled super pirate/terrorists), so if we don't provide music downloads, or video streaming, or whatever, it doesn't exist. Therefore, when we finally get around to offering some pathetic, DRM cripple

One has to wonder what "framework" they are talking about. Doe they mean a container format that could be accepted by any device? Say by way of WiFi, USB, Firewire or some new connection? Do they mean networking all the devices in the home (TV, PC, PMP, game console) to stream between? Or do they mean DRM? Or some combination of these?
There are several ways to do this and they aren't forthcoming about which they intend to establish. Of course we expect them to jump to the DRM/"secure" connection conclusio

The DRM thing is having a knock-on effect in my buying habits that go beyond the realm of media and into consumer electronics.

I'd rather build replacements for most home entertainment out of increasingly available mini ITX kit. A nice general purpose computer that I control all aspects of the product lifespan. Hey, no forced obsolescence! All except the ipod, but thankfully I'm not interested in that.

It has nothing to do with quality. They're targeting a market where 75% of the potential users are on an incompatible platform. That would be a huge handicap even if the technology they're pushing was actually desirable.

Consumer: "I wish I could have a digital backup of my music..."Sony: "We'll offer you streaming versions of your favorite songs! Buy it once, play it anywhere!"Consumer: "Awesome! So how do I use this on my iPod?"Sony: "...well, you can't."Consumer: "But you just said..."Sony: "Listen, kid. We have a streaming service that works through a couple of major retailers, and works with some very popular devices..."Consumer: "But I want it to work on mine!"

*later*

Consumer: "Alright, I got one of these new-fangled...whatevers...that supports PlayAnywhere. Now what?"Sony: "Go online and buy a CD...like that one you have right there..."Consumer: "This CD? But I already have it..."Sony: "What's your point?"Consumer: "Fine..."

*later*

Consumer: "I lost my new-fangled whatevers! Quick, let me download a copy of my songs!"Sony: "I'd love to, but that new device you just bought supports version 2.7.1 of PlayAnywhere. I'll need you to upgrade your songs or buy them outright -- either way, gimme your wallet."Consumer: "..."

Consumer: "Well, Sony weren't very helpful, but the great thing about PlayAnywhere is I'm not limited to a single supplier! Let's see who else supports these files...Great! Microsoft is a fully paid up member! Now, where's that new Zune I won in the McCain For America raffle..? OK, *Squirting files to device*...'Incompatible format!' WTF?"

H.264 is, in fact, MPEG-4 AVC, as defined in MPEG-4 Part 10. MPEG-4 ASP, as defined in MPEG-4 Part 2, is what DivX and others are based on.

MPEG-4 ASP is much more mature (in terms of both encoding and decoding) than MPEG-4 AVC. It does not have the robust features, or the tighter bitrates, but it is still the king for portable media due to the much lower decode complexity.

Quicktime uses H.264.Real's latest RMVB codec is actually very good.WMV has always been good. Not great, but it's focused on distri

I thought that H.264 was more patent encumbered than MP4. AAC? I said MP3 because it is so common. I would rather have full OGG support, Vorbis, FLAC, and Speex myself. Speex would be great for audio books.Xvid/Divx isn't too bad. Much better than Quicktime or Windows Media.Now RealMedia is interesting. They have open sourced some of their stuff but I am not sure what or how good it is.

I for one can't wait for the time I'll need RIAA's permission to own devices! It will be awesome, they are selling this BS as if it will make people's life easier, but you see, the fact people will not be able to own as much devices as they want will really piss them off, this could be the final blow to DRM.

Sony is trying to build something that nobody wants. This feels a lot like Microsoft hailstorm or passport or whatever it was called solving a problem that nobody really had or would buy into. How about get rid of the DRM and sell DRM free versions of the content on a distribution system that is easier to use than it is to pirate.

I agree with this statement fully. It is the reason I find Steam so compelling. It truly has been easier for me to re-download games onto a new system, easier for me to purchase new games, than it would be to pirate them.Of course, I've never tried to play such games on Linux, but Steam is the closest to "getting it right" I've seen.

I wouldn't mind DRM if it was truly buy once, play anywhere, but that's not how it's going to work.

Heck, these are the same people who came up with the concept of DVD "Zones". You can own two identical DVD players from the same manufacturer, but you can't play the same DVD in them if one player is set to one "zone" and one player set to another "zone".

This is also the same group that allows me to buy a song via iTunes, and play it on my iPhone, but won't let me play that same song as a ringtone without shel

With my Sony TV, the PS3 and my alarmingly fun and useful PSP, I've slowly become BORG. In fact, because of that stupid PSP that I love so much I even did the unthinkable and purchased some putrid memory sticks. Oh how I've come to loathe myself... but at least I can do that loathing while watching the Big Lebowski or Trading Places on my PSP (legally owned and transcoded, naturally).

Find something people will buy. Don't give them the best quality that you can initially. Intentionally make it defective by design. Sell them that stuff. Come back a year later, remove the defects, and people may buy it again!

I dont know... things have been changing a LOT in Sony Land, maybe the shellackign they got over the rootkit fiasco, and other things. But looking at the PS3, maybe there are some changes coming on that front.

They seem to forget something quite simple. If I can copy my 30GB of whatever to a $5.00 music player -- legally because I own both -- then I can give the music player to my friend, who can then copy the same 30GB of whatever to his computer -- legally because he now owns both.

There has never been -- that I can think of in ten seconds -- a time in history when the contents of an item could so dramatically exceed the container; where the value of the contents to the receiver is so much greater than the val

We already have a way to do that - its called the CD.. About the only disadvantage is you have to physically go buy it, or order it and wait around for it to be mailed to you.

Perhaps 'order a CD online, but get some instant-download DRM-crippled version while you wait for it to ship' would be a workable business model. (As long as it didn't cost more than the CD would by itself, and the CD was a *real* audio CD)

Had the backing of all 4 major labels, and a bunch of tech companies too. Can't remember what ones exactly.

Load of big-wigs, coming up with a specification, with the promise of devices to follow... 200 companies involved. Never really materialised though. They worked on the spec for a few years and never came up with anything definitive.

Apple turned up with the iTunes Music Store, with their FairPlay DRM system, signed up all 4 majors, and the rest is history.

how can we hope to educate them about how this scheme would usher in the dystopia RMS warned us about in "Right to Read"?

Yes, how can we warn them away from that unreadable garbage that is RMS's "Right to Read"? People are moving towards open source, colleges are moving that way, and there's always going to be an anarchist underground that will attack proprietary DRM, if only to help themselves get something for free.

Drawing a ridiculous relationship between the presidential election and RMS's drivel is new, however. Maybe you should look at the way that Obama comes off as a patronizing elitist who will ignore you for you

Sigh. If people are dumb enough to fall for Sarah Palin, the lipstick on McCain's pig, how can we hope to educate them about how this scheme would usher in the dystopia RMS warned us about in "Right to Read"?

The answer is, usurp control of the right-revocation system. Use it to revoke the rights of set top boxes to play back recordings of the most popular shows on television. Use it to revoke the rights of computers to run software in some hospitals, but restrict your activities to the software that c